


Maybe You're What Grounds Me

by littlepinkbow



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Football, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Kiss, First Meetings, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4253076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlepinkbow/pseuds/littlepinkbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I was actually just wondering if you could keep it down.  I’ve got a bakery next door and even the loaves have split.” </p>
<p>or the one where once you give up all hope, hope starts kicking a soccer ball against your wall repeatedly and fate has a funny way of showing it's face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe You're What Grounds Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noblydonedonnanoble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/gifts).



When Harry had seen the sign go up for the shop next door, he had curiously read the sign because "Tommo's Tricks" made it sound like a magic shop, but he found out soon after that it was a football skills workshop. He hadn't exactly understood what the point was, but he thought it was going to be like having a gym right next to the bakery and the thought made him sigh as he locked up to head home. 

"The Cupcakery" had been Harry's dream since he was younger. He loved baking and creating and when the market went wider for cupcakes he decided it was time to branch off from the bakery he had worked in and open his own and to date, he hadn't regretted it. Business was great, Harry was happy, and now he had some health nut moving in next door to him - which to date was the worst thing that had happened. 

For three weeks, Harry spent most of his days glaring at the pounding and construction next door that he could hear through the wall of his shop. He had even left a note on the door, asking for the construction to start later in the day so it didn’t disrupt his customers and nothing had come of it with the exception of Harry being more irritated about his neighbour. 

It was a Wednesday when Harry arrived to his bakery and saw the door of the football workshop propped open and balloons attached to the door and finally - finally the shop was open and now at least he’d only have to listen to the sound of footballs pounding against his wall. Lesser of two evils, he thought. 

When he leaned down to pull the first tray of cupcakes out of the oven, Harry felt an immense burning sensation in his wrist and, “Fuck.” He grumbled, pulling his hand back for a moment before going back to pull the cupcakes out. Of course he would start his day by burning his wrist. “This is just going to be great,” Harry mumbled to himself, reaching up to rub over the inside of his wrist, which still felt slightly warm and tingly. 

“Good day, mate? Already talking to yourself are you?” Zayn asked with a grin when he walked in, one of those grins that could make anyone in the world give in to him. Harry hated Zayn for that grin sometimes. 

“I just burnt my hand. I don’t know how I even managed.” Harry said, holding his arm so Zayn was able to see the red spot he’d rubbed into his skin. Harry and Zayn had been mates for several years and they’d only started working together when Harry needed someone to help decorate cakes and cupcakes and Zayn wanted a place to hang his paintings on the wall and sell. It was like an elephant and a fly or something like that, Harry thought to himself. 

“Odd. Well I’ll get the others out then.” Zayn said with a raised eyebrow in Harry’s direction, his eyes flicking around the shop and then back to Harry, “Has anyone been in yet today?” 

“Not yet, what are you on about?” Harry asked and he loved Zayn. He loved to hate Zayn, really. He was always up to something or always had some other master plan that made Harry fondly crazy. 

“Just weird that your soulmark is hurting. And I know you wouldn’t stick your hand that far into the oven to get anything out. Thought maybe your soulmate had come by.” Zayn’s words were careful but calculated and he quickly moved himself around the kitchen, working on the other cupcakes. 

“It’s not my soulmark. Don’t be stupid.” Harry’s voice was somewhere between annoyance and deadpan and he was so tired of everyone bringing up his soulmark. There was always a chance of a fluke, of soulmarks not matching up properly and Harry was one of those cases. The thing was, that he was fine with it. He loved his bakery, he loved his friends, he loved his family and he didn’t need someone else to make his life better. 

“I’m just saying that when mine went, it felt like that. Bit annoying and burning feeling. Don’t count it out,” Zayn said through a hum, moving about the kitchen with a grace that Harry had always envied. 

“That’s not what-” Harry started, pausing when there was a loud smack to the wall, “This is absolutely ridiculous. I’m going next door to tell them to keep it down.” And with that he turned on his heel and headed out of the bakery. Some people were trying to run legitimate businesses, he thought, and not trying to kick footballs around like idiots. 

“Hey there mate! Did you want to try out one of our free workshops today?” An eager mop of brown hair asked as he bounced through the now almost football pitch looking shop. 

“No,” Harry started but just then he was reminded of the still sore burn on his wrist and he brought his left hand over to press against the spot he had burned himself, “I was actually just wondering if you could keep it down. I’ve got a bakery next door and even the loaves have split.” Harry attempted to school his face into a serious expression, but he couldn’t help but twist his lips up into a grin at his own joke. 

“Oh, sorry about that.” The brown haired boy frowned, bringing his hand up to scratch at his chin as he looked around his workshop, “Suppose I could move some things around so we are kicking in this direction, you know?” He said, tilting his head as he looked at his set up and then looked back to the other male, a pained expression on his face as he dropped his hand down. 

“I don’t mean to be a first class knob about it, it’s just a bit unsettling.” Harry tried, licking over his lips and shrugging his shoulders. “Anyways, I’ll get out of your hair,” he said softly, stepping backwards and tucking his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. 

“You’re alright. I’ll try and move some stuff once we close up shop tonight. I’m Louis, by the way,” said the brown haired boy, Louis apparently, as he held his hand out to Harry. 

“M’Harry. Nice to meet you then.” Harry said with a curt nod before turning and heading out of the football workshop and back to his bakery. 

It had been ages since Harry had burnt himself, in fact, the last time he remembered burning himself so painfully he was in his mum’s kitchen at about 15. That wasn’t his fault, his best friend had dared him to pull a baking sheet out of the oven without an oven mitt and Harry had greatly regretted that for two weeks. 

When he returned to his bakery, he fixed himself an ice pack and laid it on his wrist, hissing slightly at the pain then slight relaxation feeling that he got. In the back of his mind he heard Zayn’s voice repeating ‘don’t count it out’ over and over again and the thought, the hope made his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. Harry was fine, or so he told everyone, he didn’t need anyone he always said, but watching the way his friends who had met their soulmates acted always made Harry feel worse than anything else. 

“You okay mate?” Zayn asked curiously, sitting across from Harry in one of the bakery tables, pushing a tea mug, of course filled with water, across the table to him. Harry knew that the melted bag of ice laying across his soulmark probably looked bad and in combination with the fact that he had sat in the seat he was nearly all day letting Zayn do most of the work -- well that, that was even worse. 

“Yeah. Just can’t stop thinking about that. What if it was my soulmate?” Harry’s voice was a ghost of a whisper when he spoke and he looked up at Zayn finally, reaching for his mug and taking a sip of his water. 

“Does it still hurt?” Zayn asked, reaching across the table and pushing the bag off water off to rub his thumb across Harry’s mark. “If it does, it could mean they’re still near.” He said hopefully, offering a smile to Harry, one that Harry knew was muted, but it was still a smile. 

“Just an annoyance really. Not as strong as before.” Harry’s words were muffled with a sigh and there wasn’t anything he hated more than uncertainty. He didn’t know if it really was his soulmate, if it was just a fluke, if it was all in his head, or if he had really burnt his wrist and he was blowing it entirely out of proportion. 

“It’s gotten quieter over there,” Zayn said, nodding towards the wall that met with the shop next door, “That’s a plus for the day, right?” Zayn’s hair fell into his eyes when he spoke and his eyes stayed trained carefully on Harry. 

Harry nodded, his lip twisting up into a small smile, “Louis. The guy next door. He’s small and energized. He said he would try and move things around later tonight but I guess he got around to it a bit early. I told him that it was so annoying even the bread had split.” Harry’s smile shifted into a grin at his joke and he turned his hand over and rested his wrist flatly on the table. 

“Oh god, Harry that’s awful.” Zayn’s expression was horrified for a split second but it soon fizzled into a laugh and he shook his head at Harry. Harry grinned back at him because if nothing else, he could always count on Zayn to be his best friend. 

Harry spent the entire next week going out. Actually, this often happened when he got a hunkering about his soulmark - he’d go out for ages, hoping to run into his soul mate and when it didn’t happen, he’d become a hermit for a week or so until he got over it and went back to his day to day routine. 

The thing about it this time was that his soulmark continued aching. Sometimes it was worse than others and there was one particular evening out at dinner with his mum that Harry nearly felt like his arm was going to fall off. Pair that with not trying to let his mum know it was hurting and he was ready to run out of the restaurant and never speak to anyone ever again. 

By Saturday morning, Harry was nearly in his tailspin, convinced that it was a fluke, that his soulmark had been mixed and maybe it was bothering him because everyone was a bit of his soul mate but no one was his true soul mate. He had read about that on the internet - and even if it was 3 AM and there was an empty bottle of red wine next to his laptop, he believed it. 

On his way into the bakery, Harry was making a mental list of all the things that were wonderful about not having a soul mate. He wouldn’t ever have to clean up after anyone else. No relationship fights. He could do what he wanted when he wanted. He could travel to Timbuktu if he really desired to. He could always watch the television in his underwear. He could live miserably for the rest of his life without a family of his own and okay. Maybe it was time for him to start thinking about something else. Soul mates weren’t everything. Especially not when you didn’t have one. 

Spending all day cutting tiny Olaf’s out of fondant that were going to go on a five year old girls cupcakes for her birthday for the next weekend might not have been everyone’s idea of a good time, but it was Harry’s idea of a good time. He knew that, from experience, by the end of the days his hands would be aching and he would want nothing more than to curl them around a glass of wine and somehow, knowing that the following week it would make a little girls birthday was more than worth it to him. 

Harry was humming along to the radio when the door to his bakery flew open and the guy from next door, Louis, came running in, his hair looking like he’d just rolled out of bed and a frantic look on his face. 

“Harry!” Louis called, bouncing from one foot to the other and practically running up to the counter and looking over it for Harry. 

“Yeah, what’s it?” Harry could hear the panic in Louis’ voice so he made his way quickly to the front of his shop, even if it meant beheading one of his tiny Olaf’s along the way. 

“Please help. One of our students. He’s got a thing? With low blood sugar and he collapsed but there’s an ambulance on the way but his mum said something sweet would help.” Louis’ words came out all in one sentence and he looked panicked in the same way Gemma had when he had fallen out of a tree at seven. 

“Is he allergic to peanuts?” Harry asked quickly, reaching into the refrigerated case in front of him, because putting someone into an allergic reaction wasn’t on his list of things he wanted to do today. 

“No? I don’t know? Does it matter?” Louis had stopped bouncing from foot to foot and instead just had his hands resting on the case in front of him and fuck. Fuck. The sensation in Harry’s wrist twinged, like someone was grabbing ahold of his wrist and yanking on it from the inside. 

“Well if someone is allergic to peanuts, it could kill them. But this would work,” Harry pulled out a bag of buttercream frosting, still in the piping back and held it up, “It’s cold so you’ve just got to knead it a bit to soften-” Harry paused when he saw Louis looking at him like he was speaking French, “You know what, I’ll just come with you.” He made his way from around the counter, squeezing his fingers around the frosting bag as he went. 

“Okay, yeah,” Louis wasted no time in turning around and heading out of the shop and back to his workshop, glancing over his shoulder only once to make sure that Harry was still behind him. 

Harry bit down on his bottom lip and followed behind Louis, his eyes softening when he saw the boy, who must have been 7 or 8 laying on the floor with his mum behind him and he immediately stepped up and offered up the frosting, “It’s buttercream. There’s no nuts or anything in it, just in case he’s allergic.” He explained nervously, wondering if he looked as ridiculous as he felt. 

When the mum who was sat on the floor below him, reached up and gratefully took the frosting, her eyes wide and frantic, Harry realised that it didn’t at all matter if he looked wild at the moment or not. He watched as she put some of the frosting onto her finger and then inside of her son’s cheek, the colour that had drained from the small boy’s skin slowly coming back. 

Louis reached over and wrapped his fingers around Harry’s wrist, squeezing firmly and that was it. The tugging sensation became so much more intense. Like there was actually someone inside of Harry trying to pull his entire soul out of his body and he couldn’t breathe. Louis opened his mouth to thank Harry, but when his eyes met Harry’s his expression looked just as speechless as Harry felt. 

“I.” Harry squeaked out in an octave he hadn’t heard out of his own mouth since he was a teenager. Clearing his throat he yanked his arm away from Louis before forcing the words out, “I have to go. I have. I have to go.” He repeated himself, more to convince himself that he need to turn and walk away, he needed to turn and get as far away from Louis as he possibly could. 

“Harry, don’t-” Louis was interrupted by the bustle of the ambulance arriving and when he looked back, he was only left with the sight of Harry’s back leaving the shop. 

Harry felt like he couldn’t breathe. Actually, he felt like he was existing in a world he didn’t belong in and this couldn’t be right. Everyone said meeting your soulmate was painful at first but they described the first time they touched as fireworks, as the most beautiful experience of their lives and what Harry experienced definitely wasn’t that. 

When shoved the door to his bakery open he gasped in a breath, not realising that he had been holding his breath since he last spoke. As soon as the door swung shut he sat down with his back against it and pulled his knees up to his chest, because at the moment breathing was more important than anything else. 

“Are we beheading snowmen instead of letting them melt now?” Zayn asked, as he walked out from the back, a piece of the Olaf Harry had accidentally cut in both of his hands and as soon as he looked at Harry he froze. “Mate, what’s wrong?” Zayn asked, sitting Olaf down and crossing the bakery to squat down in front of Harry. 

“I think I met my,” Harry gasped in another breath and he almost didn’t even want to force himself to say the next words, “soul mate.” He said finally, his eyes falling to the floor and his shoulders shaking slightly as his eyes filled with tears. 

“Why? Are you happy? What happened? Where are they?” The questions flowed out Zayn’s mouth and Harry couldn’t blame him. This was meant to be a joyous occasion, not one that left Harry feeling pained and lost. 

“The bloke next door, Louis. I think it’s him. I saw him in that restaurant with me mum the other night. And he touched me.” Harry scrunched his face up, reaching up to rub his hands over his eyes firmly, “I mean. Just now. It didn’t feel good. There weren’t fireworks.” 

Zayn almost looked amused looking back at Harry. “Louis?” He asked, his head tilting and his lips turning up and if he laughed right now Harry would kill him. Harry knew he would kill him and he hoped that for Zayn’s own good he knew Harry would kill him as well. “How long did he touch you for?” Zayn fell back on his bottom, his legs parting so he could sit a bit closer to Harry and his hands falling on Harry’s knees. 

“About ten seconds. And then I ran. Some kid collapsed and I was trying to help and I don’t want this. I want this off of me,” Harry’s voice dissolved into a panic and he reached down at scratched at his soulmark, his fingernails doing nothing but making the skin around the mark red and irritated. 

When Zayn reached forward to wrap his hand over Harry’s soulmark, Harry flinched but he let it happen anyway, “Hey, Harry. Haz. Calm down.” Zayn’s voice was warm, like caramel and he continued speaking, “It takes a bit longer than that. Feels a bit like you’re being drained, I think. That doesn’t last. It’s some bullshit about the merging of the souls.” Harry knew he was calming as Zayn spoke and Zayn kept his thumb rubbing over the mark on Harry’s skin. 

Harry took in a breath and hiccuped, one of those obnoxious hiccups that you get after you’ve gotten upset and cried, before nodding as he looked at Zayn. “No one talks about that. Not even on the internet,” Harry said sadly and it was either Zayn’s soothing him or Louis getting further away from him, but either way the mark felt a bit calmer. There was still the warm pulling sensation, but more like a kitten pulling yarn out of a ball than a tiger destructing his dinner. 

“That’s how it always is innit?” Zayn asked and if the expression he was wearing looked amused, Harry was going to pretend that he wasn’t. “No one ever talks about the hard parts. Guess it’s because once you get past them, you’re happy you know? You don’t remember the other bit.” His explanation was weak, but trying to explain it to someone who hadn’t ever experienced it would like trying to explain ice cream to someone who hadn’t ever had it. 

“What do I do now?” Harry asked, poking his bottom lip out into a frown and oh. He lifted his chin to look at Zayn before sighing slowly, “God I wonder if he felt the same thing. He probably thinks I’m the biggest knob now.” Harry’s voice trailed as he moved his hand to push his fingers through his loose curls. 

“Suppose you wait for him to come over here. Or wait over there for him.” Zayn said softly, pushing himself up from the ground, “I’ve got to get out of here though, I’ve got a dinner planned tonight. Unless you need me to stick around? I don’t mind if you need me to.” His smile was genuine, in a way that anyone who knew him would know if they really needed him, he would rearrange his entire day. 

“Nah, I’m going to just finish up these Olafs and see if he gets back before then.” Harry said, finally pushing himself up from the ground and brushing his hands down the front of his shirt gently. He was going to be okay, this was going to be okay. If Louis was his soulmate and they hated each other, one of them would just have to move, obviously. 

Harry pulled his hair back into a bun, washing his hands and returning to his tiny Olafs, which had his day not gone completely askew would be done - but maybe, maybe what was coming was better. 

He was humming along softly to the music, arranging the small snowmen onto a piece of parchment paper when he felt the twinge in his wrist again. He actually felt Louis getting closer to him before he heard the bell on the door ring when it was opened. Carefully sitting everything down to avoid another casualty, Harry pushed the parchment back on the table and called toward the front, “M’in the back. You can come back.” 

When Louis stepped through the doorway it was with a look of confusion and almost surprise, “How did you know it was me?” He asked, his cheeks going pink as he reached down to rub at the mark inside of his own wrist. 

“Felt it. Didn’t you?” Harry asked, holding his wrist up to show Louis his small anchor that was still red around it and stepping closer to Louis. “I think yours is supposed to go with mine, maybe.” He offered nervously, his eyes traveling to Louis’ wrist in order to get a better look at Louis’ soulmark. 

“Yeah. Doesn’t feel good.” Louis remarked but either way he held his hand up so that Harry could see the small nautical knot mark inside his wrist, the ends of it looking like they’d been frayed. “I think maybe. Mum’s always said something about how whatever goes with mine is probably something that would keep me grounded.” 

“Like an anchor,” Harry’s voice sounded almost like it belonged to a ghost when he spoke because he couldn’t believe that his soul mate was standing in front of him, in the flesh and even more so, he couldn’t believe there weren’t fireworks and tiny angels singing. 

“I thought this was supposed to feel good. It doesn’t feel good.” Louis’ words were mumbled, cautious and nervous in a way that Harry completely understood. His eyes were flicking around the bakery as he visibly tried to avoid touching his soulmark. 

“My mate Zayn says it doesn’t at first. Says it takes a few minutes but then you’re happy and you forget about the part that was shit.” Harry explained carefully and even though he wanted to step closer to Louis he couldn’t bring himself to. It was like everything he had been waiting for his entire life was culminated in the space between himself and Louis and the thought that maybe it wouldn’t be all it was cracked up to be made Harry completely freeze. 

“Should we give it a go then?” Louis asked, his face a shade of green that was familiar to anyone who was about to be sick and his hands almost noticeably trembling at his sides. 

Harry felt like the main character in a cheesy film, like the combination of all of his life’s moments were moving around in front of his face as he decided if this was the right or wrong move to make. There were two ways he could go, he could step into Louis or he could run the other direction, but either way, he’d up right back here, face to face with Louis and trying to figure this out. With that thought, he nodded his head slowly, “Give it a go, I think.” Harry said and it took just a moment for him to recognise the sound of his own voice. 

Louis took three steps forward before he reached up to press his fingertips to Harry’s fingertips. When their fingertips joined, both boys stiffened slightly and Louis spoke, his voice just above a whisper, “I guess now we wait.” His eyes closed as their hands pressed together, from palms to fingertips. 

Harry felt the warm pulling sensation through his body, still an uncomfortable feeling but his mind was singing a chorus of ‘it’ll be over soon’s and Harry reached his other hand out to find Louis’ other hand, lacing their fingers together and giving his hand a squeeze. “Feels weird.” Harry murmured out, the feeling making Harry’s body feel completely empty, it was like everything around him was seen in shades of grey. 

“Weird,” Louis agreed, looking at their hands then up to Harry’s face. He shifted from foot to foot, eyes on Harry the entire time and his fingers jerked just slightly against Harry’s fingers. 

It was just as if on cue and if someone had snapped their fingers, Harry felt a rush back into him, his eyes squeezed shut in nervousness and it took Harry just a moment to realise that rather than the dull aching or hard scratching his soul mark left happy. He could feel the beat of someone else, of Louis, in his soulmark. 

Finally forcing his eyes open, Harry was greeted with Louis staring back at him. Louis who had piercing blue eyes that were staring back at him, eyes that Harry hadn’t ever noticed in the time before today. Louis who looked hopeful and soft in a way that Harry hadn’t seen him before and with a soft huff Harry realised he didn’t have that many other times to compare this to. 

“I’m gonna kiss you now.” Harry stumbled over his works, but he took his hand that hand been pressed against Louis’ and moved it to tuck his thumb under Louis’ chin and lift his head. “And if you want to like kiss me back, you can. Or you don’t have to. I’m not going to be mad at you either way,” He rambled on, shaking all the thoughts from his head. 

Louis blinked slowly at Harry and Harry’s explanation was a little more like a short novella and Louis stepped forward, their bodies nearly pressing together as he pressed his lips to Harry’s. 

The moment Louis’ lips hit Harry’s was the moment Harry had been waiting for. A warmth shot over his entire body and felt like almost immediately he couldn’t get enough of Louis. As if there were Louis shaped fireworks escaping from the top of his head. Sliding his arms around Louis he kissed him back, his eyes closing and head falling to the side as they kissed.   
When Louis finally pulled back his lips were red from the kisses and his eyes were wide as he watched Harry, Harry imagined he looked nearly the same way - completely gone over kissing Louis. It wasn’t just any kiss, it was a kiss that made both of their bodies ignite from head to toe. 

Both of their hands were drawn together, fingers linking and hands squeezing as Harry leaned in for another brief set of kisses, kisses that allowed them to get to know each other’s mouths and hands. Louis’ touch was a bit rougher than Harry was used to, although he was immediately in love with the way Louis touched him; really, he was immediately in love with everything that Louis was. 

Pulling back from their kiss, Harry sucked in a few sharp breaths and kept his eyes on Louis, wild, pupils blow and his tongue licking over his lips. When he caught his breath, he looked down at Louis, a sweet, almost amused tone to his voice when he spoke, “Maybe I will take you up on one of those workshops.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this - it went a bit more on the fluffy side than I had originally planned.


End file.
